ship , which he brought home and paid off in February 1774. American Revolutionary War America and the Atlantic In March 1777 Williams commissioned the fifth-rate , in which he joined Lord Howe on the North America station, and was with the fleet off Rhode Island during their encounter with the French under the Comte d'Estaing on 10 August 1778. He may have again suffered a bout of ill-health, for on 8 September he exchanged ships with Captain James Ferguson and took Ferguson's 32-gun frigate back to England to be paid off. In April 1780 Williams commissioned , a new and large 36-gun fifth-rate, carrying 18-pounders on her main-deck, and an experimental addition of six 18-pounder carronades to her establishment. She fell in with the French 32-gun frigate Nymphe under Captain du Rumain off Ushant on 10 August 1780. In the ensuing action the better-armed Flora overpowered the larger French ship. The Nymphe lost sixty-three men killed and seventy-three wounded; the Flora had nine killed and twenty-seven wounded. After repulsing a French attempt to board, the British captured her. Naval historian John Knox Laughton asserted that, "Such a decisive result ought to have given Williams full confidence in his novel armament, but it does not seem to have done so". Mediterranean In March 1781 the Flora was with the fleet under Vice-Admiral George Darby at the second relief of Gibraltar, and was afterwards sent on to Menorca, in company with the Captain Thomas Pakenham's 28-gun frigate HMS Crescent, in charge of some victuallers. As they were returning through the Straits off Ceuta on 30 May they met two Dutch frigates of 36 guns, the Castor and the Briel. After a 2¼-hour battle (known as the Battle of Cape St Mary) the Flora captured the Castor (under Pieter Melvill van Carnbee), but the Briel had meantime compelled the Crescent to strike her flag; the Flora hastened to her consort's assistance, and the Briel made her escape. Afterwards, on 19 June, as the two frigates and their prize were broad off Cape Finisterre they fell in with two French 32-gun frigates, Friponne and Gloire. The Crescent and Castor had been dismasted in the former engagement and were Jury rigged with only 300 unwounded men out of a full complement of 700 over the three ships. The Castor had only a prize crew on board, who were unable to leave the pumps. Williams